America just witnessed the most expensive federal election in our history. An estimated $6 billion was spent on the political circus. Now that partisan tempers have cooled, it is time to face the fact that lax disclosure requirements, antiquated Federal Election Commission (FEC) laws and aggressive online campaign fundraising have endangered the U.S. election system.

At the core of the problem is a lack of transparency. Take, for example, the rising importance of "bundlers", individuals who collect numerous donations for a candidate. The FEC does not require campaigns to disclose the names of bundlers unless they are registered lobbyists. President Obama voluntarily disclosed his bundlers, but Mitt Romney did not. That's a problem because bundlers who bag big bucks for candidates are more likely to receive dubious favors, such as government grants, loans or lucrative contracts. While requiring candidates to disclose bundlers wouldn't end cronyism, it would at least allow us to identify it.

A bygone era

Another weakness of the way we finance campaigns is the "pass the hat" rule, which allows candidates to avoid reporting donations totaling less than $200 in an election cycle. The rule gets its name from the bygone era when politicians literally passed a hat. Today, with campaigns hauling in hundreds of millions of dollars in small Internet donations, the rule doesn't make sense.

Using something called "robo-donors," fraudsters can generate thousands of small donations to evade the rules. Many campaigns exacerbate the problem by intentionally maximizing such donations. For example, when a British citizen wanted to test the Obama campaign's online donation system to see whether it allowed him to donate — illegal under U.S. law — not only did the Obama campaign accept his $10 contribution, it sent him follow-up e-mails requesting a $188 donation, keeping his donations to $198, just under the $200 disclosure threshold.

Credit card security

America's campaign-finance system is especially vulnerable to illegal foreign donations for another reason: The FEC has no minimum security standards for online fundraising. For example, even though 90% of the top e-commerce websites require individuals to enter their three- or four-digit credit card security number (known as the CVV) before making a transaction, a recent study by the Government Accountability Institute found that 47% of the donation websites for members of Congress do not. Neither did Obama's. The extra step can block foreign donations.

The threat of foreign influence is hardly new. In 1972, President Nixon's campaign allegedly received millions from the shah of Iran, Arab interests and a French businessman. In 1980, the Philippine president reportedly hatched a plan to funnel funds into the election. In the 1990s, the Chinese government and an Indonesian family gave hundreds of thousands to President Clinton, a process that could be masked and turbo-charged by the Internet.

Many issues divide Americans, but keeping illegal campaign money out of elections isn't one. So why not begin to fix the problem with some simple solutions? Require disclosure of bundlers, report donations under $200 and improve security for online credit card donations. Doing those things would be a smart step in the right direction.

Peter Schweizer is president of the Government Accountability Institute and a fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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